Utah gymnasts fall at home to Stanford

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah gymnastics coach Greg Marsden says he's as competitive as the next person when it comes to wanting to win. Heck, he used to chase officials up the stairs after meets to complain about scores.

But Friday night when his fourth-ranked Red Rocks' 20-home-meet win streak fell to second-ranked Stanford in a meet that was tied going into the last event, all Marsden could really feel was pride. After all, he'd lost two seniors to injury in the past week and had freshmen doing all but nine of his 24 routines, including the two anchor routines in the toughest event, beam.

Stanford took the meet with its season-best beam set (49.325 to Utah's 49.00 on floor), beating the Utes 196.825-196.50, season-best scores for both teams.

The Huntsman Center house of 13,835 included Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck, whose girlfriend is Cardinal Nicolle Pechanec. Also on the Stanford team is Ashley Morgan, daughter of baseball great Joe Morgan.

Morgan's mother was there, said Stanford coach Kristen Smyth.

"I'm just so impressed, and proud of my team, what they've done," Marsden said.

And his athletes seemed to feel the same way after their first loss of the season.

"I thought we did pretty good under the circumstances," said senior Gael Mackie. "Stanford's a really good team, and it was, like, a pretty close meet going into floor. It's been hard with the challenges that we've faced."

Mackie contributed 9.875 on bars, 9.725 on beam and 9.875 in her first floor routine of the year, even though her last tumbling pass was watered down as she tries to come back from a severe ankle injury last summer.

Marsden had planned to use Mackie only if one of his first five floor-workers had a problem because she wasn't completely ready, but when he asked Mackie before freshman Corrie Lothrop performed as the No. 5 person in the lineup, Mackie said she wanted to do it. Her outstanding dance routine got the crowd whipped up to end the meet, even if the Utes weren't going to win.

"If you had told me a week ago," said Marsden, "that we were without Kyndal (Robarts, out at least a month with a knee injury) and Jacq (mild concussion), six routines by seniors, and 15 routines by freshmen tonight, and we're within three-and-a-half tenths of Stanford, I'd never have believed you. I think we did an incredible job tonight, and I think we can still get better."